Stupid article. First this stupid NIE hack job did not change the policy of President Bush toward Iran. The President went out of his way in the last three days to tell the world and the terrorist regime in Iran that nothing has changed regarding the US policy toward Iran nuclear program, they are going to be stopped from enriching uranium which is the most important element to make nukes. The President is saying now what he has been saying for the last two years on this issue.
The NIE report may well be a hack job, but in the court of public debate it trumps anything Bush now says about Iran. The point of the article is just how utterly inept and tone deaf this administration is and always has been.
I see this same conversation - or one much like it - Occurring in a few years when we have allowed another non conservative (say Huckabee) to be maneuvered into the Republican nomination and the presidency, only to "discover" later that 1) Amnesty for illegals is his first priority, 2) The borders will be propped open even wider than they are now, 3) The Liberal agendas on education, welfare, health care, et al are all being pushed right from the White House itself.
Yes, but perceptions often morph into reality, and sometimes STEER US policy to places we should not go.
The Bush Administration, instead of issuing a "respectful" statement in response to this NIE hit job, should have gotten in FRONT of the news cycle by proclaiming OUT LOUD that the writers of this report were in fact Democratic sychophants at best, and terror appeasers at worst.
I mean, c'mon. It was left up to shoe-leather reporters at the Wall Street Journal to tell the country that two of the three writers of the NIE report were in fact openly hostile to our policy of confronting and eliminating alQaeda and other terrorists.